DRUG WARRIORS - DEA, FBI, Customs & U.S./Mexico Police

BOBBY NIEVES

When you go overseas [as] a federal agent and learn about drugs that are
coming into the U.S., [is it] a crime if you don't stop it or inform
authorities?

Yeah. There are controlled deliveries. You can't be a participant in drugs
hitting the street. You're duty-bound, you're obligated to take the proper
enforcement actions when you learn about shipments of drugs. No
question...Essentially it's our job to take the drugs off the street.
That's what it's about.

You've been publicly accused of letting it happen.

I was publicly accused by conspiracy theorists whose opinions don't value
much. The person who publicly accused me was Gary Webb, in a book called
Dark Alliance. The guy's a fabricator. Publications like the New York
Times, L.A. Times, Washington Post, have all said that his stories were
fantasy. His own Knight-Ridder Publications retracted many of the things he
reported, so I place no value on what Gary Webb says. He is a conspiracy
theorist, his motivation was clearly to sell books. It's irrelevant what he
says.

The suspicion is still there...

What you are referring to is the Iran-Contra affair. In my opinion, it's
the second most investigated event in American history, the first being the
J.F.K. assassination. Every stone has been turned. Every page has been
written. Everybody who had any knowledge about it has been questioned ad
nauseam. There is no story about Contra drug smuggling that hasn't been
reported a thousand times by the Kerry commission, Tower Commission, the
IG's...There is no story...

...The Inspector General of the CIA has said in a second volume of the
report on Gary Webb that there were 51 known Contra-related people who were
involved in drugs: 14 individuals who were directly related, working with
the Contras; another 14 pilots who at one time or another had some drug
connection; 23 of their support people, and 3 of the companies that were
involved in supplying the Contras. If it wasn't a grand conspiracy, what
was it?

First of all, I don't know that those numbers are accurate. I think they
probably include uncorroborated reports. You have to understand Central
America at that time was a haven for conspiracy theorists. The Christic
Institute, people like Gary Webb, others down there looking to dig up some
story for political advantage. No sexier story than to create the notion in
people's minds that these people are drug traffickers.

What the American people have lost sight of, and what the liberals [and
conspiracy theorists] would want you to lose sight of...is the fact that
the Contra conflict was about indigenous people...fighting for
survival...against the Communist government. They're lost in all these
conspiracy theories. You never hear about them. At their height there might
have been 10,000 Contras. Let's say that the [I.G.'s] right, and there were
mentions of about 100 people. That's 1%, or less than 1% of the Contra
movement that was even whispered about being engaged in this...

... [In Costa Rica] you were privy to what was going on in the region
related to drug trafficking. What was going on at that time?

Heavy Colombian trans-shipment of drugs by way of Costa Rica. And huge
cases were made...We were busy making real cases and not chasing fantasy
shipments that people were imagining were taking place there. Because there
weren't...All of these reports were looked at, all of these issues were
found to be uncorroborated and unsubstantiated. There was no organized
Contra drug trafficking supply line through Costa Rica. It just wasn't
there. It's a fantasy, it's a conspiracy...

Why do you think that particularly in the [American] black community they
believed these stories?

Because I think certain black leaders have embraced the conspiracy theory
as a way to gain some political advantage in the political mainstream. It's
just that simple. Creating in the minds of constituents the fact that the
government must be to blame for drug addiction in X, Y or Z location, seems
to be a tool that some politicians like to use to gain some political
advantage. It's only politics. That's all it is.

So you're sitting here today and saying this was all created for political
advantage?

I think so. There's no question in my mind about it. That's all it is. It's
smoke. You think something like this could be secret? Do you think if
people misbehaved the way Gary Webb says they misbehaved that [it] would go
unproven? It can't happen. It just can't happen.

...What the conspiracy theorist does is he takes a shred of proof. Bob
Nieves was the DEA agent in Costa Rica. And at that time, Mr. X was an
informant in that office. Therefore, it follows that he must have known all
of these things. It's not so. I'm here to tell you it's not so.

So all these reports on CBS news [about] John [Hull], a farmer in Costa
Rica, [who] was a CIA operator running drugs--

How do you know? Well, I don't know what John Hull was and wasn't. I do
know this--if he misbehaved as much as they say he did, why isn't he in jail?

...People misbehave, you get the proof, [and] they go to jail. And the
bottom line is [if] there is no proof . . . nobody goes to jail. So the
conspiracy theory thrives on the notion that you can just keep digging up
this dirt and adding all these angles and spins to a story because it has
political value...By the way, I don't think black America is sold on this
theory. I think that a certain vocal minority among the black community
buys into this, but I don't think black America by any stretch of the
imagination is sold on it.

But there was a large flow of Colombian cocaine going through the region
while you were there.

Then, now, all day, every day.

And [on] one of those flights [the C.I.A.] actually photographed Pablo
Escobar and [Federico Vaughn] in Nicaragua.

I wasn't quite there yet, but I know what you're talking about.

What was that all about?

I wasn't involved with that at that time. I didn't go down until 1985 and
that was 1984. But it was about getting the best evidence they could on
Pablo Escobar, and they got it. They happened to get a person named
[Federico Vaughn] on tape as well.

[What was the reaction in Washington when that information became public?]

Mixed. I think there was some consternation...Washington [is] an extremely
political town. When you have that kind of proof, it takes on a certain
political value. From time to time [the DEA] comes across these very
political issues that can get in the way of investigations. It happens.

But it's pretty spectacular when you've got Pablo Escobar [and] a
Sandanistan official [on tape].

I think it's very spectacular. It's a head of state's staffer engaging in
direct contact and trafficking with Pablo Escobar, who at that time was a
premier Colombian drug trafficker. So yeah, very significant event, no
question. Especially when they are a declared enemy in this undeclared
conflict in Central America. I think it's a very significant event. Hard to
keep a lid on that kind of a political event, and so there were, I guess,
more compelling, overriding reasons why it had to be [made public].

[Was the CIA helpful to you in overseas drug enforcement in the mid-1980s?]

I think they were as helpful as they could be, but they were busy on other
things...The CIA, at that time in Central America, certainly had a
different mission. Drugs was not necessarily their mission, it was our
mission. And so there was very little overlap of jurisdictions, so to
speak. They pretty much were focused on other things.

[In terms of drug policy, did you see CIA concerns override DEA concerns?]

...If you're referring to national policy, I really don't know. I think the
CIA, the Department of Defense, all of the departments that have a hand or
a role to play in the drug problem want to do something to solve the drug
problem, or at least play their role. So I think those are policy issues.
But when you're talking [about] a regional issue and you say to me, "How
does the policy get set, and how do you interact with the CIA or somebody
overseas?" The fact of the matter is, all relationships in the federal
government, [even] policy, can be dictated by relationships based on
personalities. And so I think when I was in Costa Rica I had outstanding
relationships with the agency and others. I think I worked hard at doing
that...

But was it frustrating to you on the ground to see CIA, State, Defense
Department concerns override your primary objectives?

They weren't overriding our primary--never, under no circumstances.
Contrary to what Leslie Cockburn, [and] Gary Webb think, the embassy was
being run in a way that allowed me to do an outstanding job down there. I
think we increased seizures in Costa Rica by a remarkable amount. We gave
more assistance to the Costa Rican government than any other time prior to
that. We had put a program in place that allowed us to engage in some of
the best investigative efforts that were done in that country. Now all of
that gets put on the back burner in favor of these outlandish conspiracy
theories that people want to put forth that this was some kind of a Dodge
City where the Sheriff was wrong. And the fact of the matter is, it's not
true. It just didn't happen that way, it's all fantasy.

Well, I was thinking perhaps the truth lay somewhere between.

No. Well, from my perspective, I can only tell you this--that I was given
carte blanche to do my job. Never once did anybody ever say anything to me
about anything I was doing that was nothing but supportive. And so I've got
the strong sense that the embassy was entirely behind what the DEA was
doing in Central America at that time. And the evidence is that we were
more productive at that time in Costa Rica than at any time before that. So
there was no interference. There was no overriding priority, there was no
competition, there was [nothing] except for support of the DEA's mission.
And that's a fact.

PBS Frontline Series Follow Up by Tom O'Connell, Kevin Zeese, Doug McVay,
and Eric Sterling:
http://www.drugsense.org/dsw/2000/ds00.n170.html#sec1

Campaign for the Restoration & Regulation of Hemp's HempTV website has the
full, two part, total of almost 4 hours of video of the PBS Frontline "Drug
Wars" available on the web for free video streaming using the Real Player 8.

To watch Part one of Drug Wars, go here:

http://www.crrh.org/hemptv/docs_drugwars1.html

To see part 2, go here:

http://www.crrh.org/hemptv/docs_drugwars2.html

Click this link for an index to this series:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1551.a01.html